Particular Tastes
by Dragon'sHost
Summary: Everyone has their preferences. Armada project: 32/365


**Laki is such a difficult character for me to write. Her personality is fine but her speech patterns are _murder._**

 **Which is why this only has one line of dialogue.**

* * *

If there was one thing Kinana had to learn on the fly as a bartender, it was that every single patron and member of Fairy Tail had their own particular tastes. Tastes that they would not budge on for the world.

Mirajane had known them all - over a hundred people's individual idiosyncrasies accommodated from where they liked to sit, to their preferred drink's best temperature. The white haired woman had made it seem so effortless, as natural as breathing.

It was a feat that Kinana struggled to replicate in her absence. Duplicating years worth of observation and trial and error was no easy task, and the prospect frightened her. Unlike Mirajane, she was new to this in general; she was still learning the basics, let alone the particulars. And the guild, rife with grief over the tragedy on Tenrou Island, had little patience for her clumsy fumbling. She understood for she also grieved along with them. But it stung.

Eventually, she began to pick up on some of the members' preferences and habits. One by one, she added each to her store of memories. It was probably a blessing that she didn't have many memories as it was, so the new ones stuck very quickly.

Macao, Kinana had learned early on, preferred his beer warm instead of cold. He didn't have a favorite seat in the guild, but if he was in one area then Wakaba wasn't far away.

Nab liked the tables closest to job request board, and whenever he returned from yet another abandoned job Kinana made sure to have his particular pale ale in stock.

Those ones were fairly easy, though.

Perhaps the hardest person to figure out had been (of all people) the one and only Laki Olietta.

The purple haired, bespectacled maker mage was an odd duck, or so most of the guild agreed. Her speech patterns were a challenge in and of themselves to decipher, and if she ordered a drink, Kinana had to think long and hard on what exactly it was that Laki was requesting.

But that was far from Laki's only requirement, Kinana discovered.

Careful questioning and close observation revealed that Laki refused to drink from any type of mug that wasn't made of resin-coated wood. She would spit out any drink served to her in a metal tankard, or cup. The woman claimed that the metal changed the taste of her drink too much. Glass would be sniffed at but tolerated on her better days.

This preference for wood-based products was not limited to choice of drink container, either. It was wooden plating, wooden utensils, and wooden seating or she would make her own. Thanks to this, she was almost a permanent fixture at the bar.

Unexpectedly, Kinana also found that Laki was extremely talkative... provided someone took the time to actually converse with her, and puzzle their way through her speech habits. On one of her more drunken nights, too deep in her cups to walk home by herself, Kinana had closed up shop and escorted her to the dormitory. Once there, she had been treated to a glimpse of the woman's odd torture instrument collection - thankfully all unused (at least as far as Kinana could tell).

That had been the night that Laki had also confessed that she only drank so much because of how desperately she missed Cana. It wasn't her usual vice (said with a high-pitched giggle and a wave of her hand to a device in the corner that Kinana refused to look at straight-on), but today... today she had _really_ missed her.

Fairy Tail's resident drunkard and wood make mage had been the best of friends.

The news burned Kinana's ears with shame, for having not noticed before. In hindsight, it was clear. Where Cana drank in her memories, Laki loitered nearby.

And then Laki confessed one more thing. Something that spread the burning sensation all throughout Kinana's face.

"Kinana... thank you for listening. Whenever you talk to me, my chest is a waterfall of drums!"

Somehow, without noticing, Kinana's world had begun to revolve around this woman, and Laki's had in turn.

Laki had very particular taste indeed.

But apparently so did Kinana.


End file.
